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Archive for April, 2019

May 19 corn closed up 5 ¼ at $3.61 ¾ and December 2019 closed up 4 at $3.88 ¾. May beans closed up 11 ¼ at $8.95 ½ and November 19 closed up 9 ¼ at $9.14 ¾. May wheat closed up 5 at $4.62 ¾ and July 19 closed up 4 ½ at $4.68. Crude oil closed up $1.45 at $61.59.

Markets bounced back Monday after Friday’s report-inspired break. Corn finished the day with $.04-$.05gains, beans $.10-$.11 higher. Managed Money traders appeared to take some profits on shorts today. They were believed net buyers of 20,000 corn (to take them to 240k net short), 10,000 beans (now 75k net short), 4,000 meal (10k net short), and were net even on oil (30k net short).

Exports have been a sore point for the bull in recent months, but it was a point of support today. Overnight, South Korea announced they were in for more corn, obviously spurred on by the recent market break. Last week’s trade rumor of China buying more beans also appeared to be confirmed, when the USDA announced a private sale of 828,000 MT of old crop soy to China. Last but not least, the weekly grain inspections release mid-day found a very solid week of corn shipments. For the week ended 3/28, exporters shipped 1.26 mmt of corn, which compared favorably to the prior week’s total just under 1 mmt, but still lagged the year ago week’s 1.45 mmt. Mexico was easily the number one destination. Corn shipments YTD moved to 29.7 mmt, which compares to 24.6 mmt on the books this time last year. Soybean inspections of 0.731 mmt saw a small wk/wk reduction from 0.860 mmt the week prior, but still easily bested the year ago week’s 0.584 mmt. YTD bean inspections stand at 29.3 mmt versus 41.5 mmt on the books this time last year.

Weather influences remain largely unchanged to start the week. Flooding in the U.S. Midwest continues, which continues to raise the possibility of acreage switches and/or lost yield potential, should it persist too long. Temps are expected to warm-up, but the lower Midwest and Delta are still expected to see frequent rains. Short-run conditions in South America are mostly favorable. Crop watchers there would like to see a little more rain in the April outlook. Brazil export/import data for March was fairly pedestrian, showing modest increases in most commodities.

Technically, May Corn never seriously checked out the report day lows, which is now interim support. Expect selling back near “old support” just below $3.70. Beans also held their support shelf, and came close to challenging initial support just below $9 in May. Same story for Meal, which remains solidly within the recent range. Support near $300, initial resistance starts at $310 and intensifies every $5 higher.

Hopefully, Monday’s wheat price action will not be remembered as a bad April Fools day joke, and the price action in wheat may be coming to an end. After a mixed overnight session, the wheat complex caught a bid and raced out to double digits higher in Chicago. That strength may hot have held, but futures did remain higher over the balance of the day. Trade looks like it may still be trying to adjust after Friday’s crop report data, which was not overly bearish to trade, but not friendly either. Monthly condition reports this afternoon showed the SRW wheat crop well behind where it was last year, but the HRW wheat crop much better than where it was last year. The data was mostly expected, but it still may give a boost. Algeria is in tomorrow, and Bangladesh is in later in the week, and they may give us a better gauge as to where World wheat prices are week over week. Talk this morning that they may have been a couple dollars lower, but that data was hard to come by.

All state by state weekly wheat condition ratings started this afternoon. Many states are below, with some compared to last week, while others are compared to this time last year. Overall conditions came in at 56% G&E and 9% P&VP vs 32% G&E and 31% P&VP this time last year. HRW states were rated 57% G&E compared to only 18% last year, while SRW states were rated 41% G&E vs 58% last year. Spring wheat planting will start next week. Colorado wheat conditions declined slightly from last week with G&E falling 2% up to 66%, while P&VP was unchanged at 5%.

South Dakota wheat conditions fell slightly week over week, with G&E dropping 6% up to 38%, while P&VP remained at 3%. Ohio wheat conditions are the worst on record to start a year, with 28% of the crop rated G&E (vs 75% last year), while 26% of the crop is rated P&VP (vs only 3%last year). Tennessee wheat conditions are off slightly from this time last year. In its first report of the year, G&E was pegged at 54% vs 57% last year, while P&VP was 14% vs 6% this time last year.